The Holy Spirit Is My Fight Coach

I own two seasons of The Ultimate Fighter, and both of them provide a little entertainment and inspiration whenever my wife is out of the house (she isn't crazy about sports). Some might be offended that I watch the UFC because of the violence or the ring girls or the cussing, but that offense overlooks the main reasons why mixed martial-arts is so attractive to so many serious Christian men: the aspects that we enjoy are the intensity, dedication, and humility involved, and the brotherhood among fighters. These are important aspects in our goal of living a Holy Spirit-driven life. We're flesh and blood people, and we need human examples to show us spiritual truths. So when I see how these fighters train and lean heavily on their coaches I gain an understanding about what it looks like to train in godliness and lean heavily on the Spirit. Although bodily training has limited value, and godliness is of value in every way (1 Timothy 4.8), aspects from one can provide helpful lessons about the other.

The Holy Spirit Is My Coach
First, godliness is a fight, and it is a battle every day when I attempt to take my sinful flesh and fallen nature and train them to live in the image of God (1 Corinthians 9.25-26). In that fight, the Holy Spirit is my coach (John 15.26) whom the Lord Jesus called the Helper who guides us (John 16.13). The contestants on The Ultimate Fighter are constantly listening to directions from their coaches while they are fighting in the octagon, and we are to constantly be led by the Spirit while we fight temptation in our desire to live in holiness (Romans 8.14). This is how He does it: (1) The Holy Spirit coaches us by giving instructions (Nehemiah 9.20); (2) He changes us into men who will better fight the battle for personal godliness (Titus 3.5); (3) He equips us with the tools and skills needed to carry out this fight (1 Corinthians 12.1). The Holy Spirit is my Helper and my Coach in the fight to live in God's image. The guys on The Ultimate Fighter train hard and follow their coaches in order to get a contract and fame, but we train and follow the Holy Spirit for a more eternal crown of victory (James 1.12).

I Struggle To Listen to My Coach

Second, the rough truth is, because God is Spirit (John 4.24) and doesn't have a body (1 Timothy 1.17), it's tough to remember to listen to Him. We have His Word and that's enough - but we refuse to listen to it (Luke 16.31). Our prayers are intimately guided by the Holy Spirit - but we often refuse to pray (Jude 1.20). It would be insane and foolish for a fighter not to listen to his coach while he's in the cage, but I know my biggest struggle is that I get so involved in the fighting -blogging, evangelism, apologetics, life- that I put my head down and completely forget to listen to the Holy Spirit and refuse to let Him coach me. It's an authority problem. Either I'm submitting to Him or I'm not. Either I trust Him to give me good instructions or I don't. The problem is that we're bad at listening to the Holy Spirit and we've got this notion that we can do things ourselves (which is going to get us spiritually killed). The solution is to let Him train us through the Word, and then listen to Him during the daily fight through prayer. There's no other way.

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Getting Into the Octagon With the Spirit

Third, the Holy Spirit trains us to fight with intensity and dedication. These are action-oriented words. The Holy Spirit regenerates us with new desires (Titus 3.5), so we use those new desires to fight for holiness. Dedication is a training word: if you're getting ready for a fight you're going to persevere through cutting weight, practicing your technique, and studying your opponent. As any athlete would tell you, your life will be consumed by training for the sport. The Spirit helps us to dedicate our lives to the fight for personal holiness. He pushes us to memorize Scripture, discipline our bodies, and establish regular habits for our spiritual good. Intensity is both a fight and a training word: fighters don't just lift a little, run a little, or punch a little; they hit those weights with an all-consuming drive and throw haymakers like their lives depend on it. With the Holy Spirit coaching us on we are to live spiritual lives of intensity that cannot be called lukewarm (Revelation 3.16) by anybody, memorizing and evangelizing and conquering sin with a drive that eclipses and shapes everything else around us. The Spirit pushes us and guides us into spiritual lives of intensity and dedication.

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A Brotherhood of Fellow Fighters

Fourth, under a good coach, you'll become part of a group of fighters who represent a particular team or gym. That coach gives you a place to belong and connects you to others fighters through him, a sort of brotherhood of mixed-martial artists. The Holy Spirit does this also. The gifts of the Holy Spirit make us one body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12.13) and we are all connected to God and to each other through the one Holy Spirit (John 17.21). Before Jesus was crucified, He prayed for us all to be one, just as the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father (John 17.11). The Holy Spirit makes us all part of one another. Wrapping this all up, the Holy Spirit gives us: (1) guidance and instruction; (2) pushes us in dedication and intensity; (3) and connects us in Him to a brotherhood of fellow Christians.

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A Quick Note On Being All About Morality

As a good Calvinist, I've got to be sensitive about making the Christian life seem like a moral pursuit. It's not. The truth is, the Holy Spirit is not just our coach. He dwells inside of us (Romans 8.9) and helps us in our weakness (Romans 8.26). He regenerates us - that means He takes us as sinful people and does the heavy lifting of changing us so that we can live for God. The message here, as with the Gospel, is not do this, but receive Him. You have not received the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry out to God, "Father!" (Romans 8.15). It's not just about following the rules of the Holy Spirit, it's that He heals us of our wickedness and forms us into the Image of God.

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-Sean

Celebrities and Friedrich Nietzsche

Celebrity-honoring extravaganzas like the Oscars and the Grammy Awards might be over for now, but that doesn't mean actors and musicians are out of the spotlight just yet. We love them. We want more of them. And because we love them, the most popular newspapers in the world are those which contort themselves and strain to deliver our demands for more: The Sun is the second most widely circulated English newspaper on the planet, and it is little more than a British celebrity gossip magazine. But have you ever stopped to wonder why it is that we follow the lives of the rich and famous? After all, Brad Pitt and Justin Bieber do seem like interesting people, but not enough for me to want to pay tens of thousands for a lock of Bieber's hair! There is something more going on. As far as I can tell, the reason we follow the lives of these famous people is because they represent the heights of human potential for us: we pay them to be our idols, to be ridiculously rich and extravagant with their money and endlessly creative and frighteningly super-athletic, and we do this so that we can hold them up and live out our dreams through them. That's our social contract; we make them extremely wealthy, and they become our Supermen.

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Getting Burned By Nietzsche's Superman

I am also part of the cult of the celebrity-watchers. Except, the people whom I take inspiration from are not named Lady Gaga or Matt Damon (though, it's a safe bet that if Damon's in it, it's a good film); I am instead partial to superstar athletes such as Georges St-Pierre, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and the Canadian wrestler Christ Benoit. I tend to respect athleticism. Actually, maybe you'll recognize the name of Chris Benoit, even if you are not a fan of professional wrestling: in 2007 Chris Benoit made international headlines all over the world for his role in a shocking double-murder suicide in which he murdered his wife, strangled his infant son, and then finally hung himself to death on his own weight equipment. I remember this, because Chris Benoit was my hero. I was nineteen years old. Whenever I am tempted to laugh at people for following Justin Bieber (who has, let's face it, the mental capacity of a valley girl) or the once-mentally ill Britney Spears, I have to remember that my supposed superior choice is best known for killing off his entire family.

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But that's the catch, isn't it? Our celebrities fail. No matter how fast, strong, wealthy, or creative people get, the real story comes when our Supermen fall from orbit and burn up in the atmosphere - sometimes with devastating results. We know that a good Christian girl like Miley Cyrus is just going to go downhill once fame has run its course. We expect it. These people that we worship might represent to us what the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called 'the superman' when he wrote 'Man is a rope, tied between beast and super-man... what is great in man is that he is a bridge [to the Superman] and not an end', but we know that the impossible prosperity and prowess of the famous will not hold them aloft in the air forever. They will come down. All that they represent of our human potential does not seem to help them very much. And if we bind up our future with theirs, we know that when they fall and burn up in the atmosphere we will be burned along with them, as I, through Chris Benoit, also got burned by Nietzsche's Superman.

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The Better, More Eternal Standard

There's nothing wrong with the celebrity gifts of money, athleticism, and creative genius. A lot of those things take hard work to get. I'm not going to sit here and write that I don't want the athleticism of Georges St-Pierre, the handyman capabilities of Mike Holmes, the voice of Dustin Kensrue, or the money of Bill Gates. If God came down from heaven and said "I'm going to bless you with all of the abilities of Bruce Wayne," I wouldn't say no. But we've seen that these gifts aren't really what help people make it in the end. You can have all the musical talent in the world and still go off the rails, ending up without any dignity. So I'm going to offer a better standard for us to follow: the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The usual superhuman qualities which we admire in celebrities are okay things I guess, but humankind gets its dignity and purpose from being made in God's image (​Genesis 1.26), and Jesus is God become a man (Matthew 1.23). If you want to be like Arnold Schwarzenneger (who has also been having some problems lately), go ahead: hit the weights. If you want something a little more lasting then follow Jesus instead (1 Timothy 4.8). Everything we work for fades in the end, but following Jesus has eternal value.

Why A Fiction Hero Is No Hero At All

If you read X-Men, Cyclops is a really great character because he shows us what it's like to be a hero and how to blast the bad guys with optic beams. Wait - back up, did I just say that? Well that's just completely wrong. Cyclops isn't a good role model, because he's got unrealistic abilities. We couldn't possibly do what he does. Even as a model for heroism, at best he only inspires the idea of heroism. He can't show us how it's done because the fictional Cyclops doesn't have to get around our limitations. So a better example for us would be real-life heroes that have our limitations, like our firemen, the police officers who keep our streets safe, soldiers who protect our countries, and your local super-serum enhanced S.H.I.E.L.D. operative. Maybe not the last one. But that's what makes Jesus of Nazareth someone to pattern our lives after. Even though He is God, He took on our weaknesses and limitations. He's not like some superhero who breaks out a new power to cope with every situation. Jesus experienced temptation to sin (Hebrews 4.15); acknowledged a 'will' in Himself that might be opposed to the Father's (Luke 22.42), learned obedience (Hebrews 5.8), experienced impatience (Mark 9.19), got angry (Mark 3.4-5), hid in a house to get time alone (Mark 7.24-25) and had the normal limitations of exhaustion (Mark 4.38), and hunger (Matthew 4.2), and was overwhelmed by grief (Matthew 14.12-13). Jesus had the whole range of human limitations, but did not sin (1 Peter 2.22), which means we can actually follow His lead. Only Jesus can show us what it looks like to live in the image of God when you haven't slept, eaten, or had any time to yourself, and everybody seems to need something from you. Jesus is the only one who models that for us.

Jesus Is the Image of God

We've already shown that (1) we tend to worship celebrities because they model something super-human; (2) those celebrities are flawed and broken; (3) even if they weren't broken, Jesus models an even better standard to live up to; (4) Jesus' limitations make Him more worthy of our imitation; and now, (5) Jesus shows us how to be human. Like I've said before, Christian doctrine says that we were made in the image of God (Genesis 1.26). This has to do with representing what God is like (Ephesians 4.24). Because Jesus was God in human flesh, complete with a human nature and all its limitations, Jesus shows us most clearly what it looks like to be a human being who carries out their purpose in life, living in God's image - Jesus shows us how to be human. We have sinned and fallen short of God's glory, but thank God, He sent Jesus not only to die for us and save us from our sins, but to show us what a new life as one of His people looks like. In Jesus, we don't just have salvation (as if salvation was such a small thing that it should have the word 'just' in front of it!) but the perfect model for what life looks like when one has put away a life of sin. Jesus is the image.

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-SeanRice

Imago Dei, You've Got Your Father's Image

Good luck trying to live in the image of God if you can't even figure out who He is or what He's like. Take today's topic for example: If God is a Trinity -one being, in three persons- then that means some things for how we live out His image. If there's one God (James 2.19), and the Father and Jesus are both the only God (1 Corinthians 8.6 and 1 John 5.20), and yet they are both different (Matthew 24.36), and on top of that we also have the Holy Spirit thrown in the mix (John 14.16-17 and Acts 5.3-4), then all of that gets played out into what it means to represent God's nature as people who are made in His image. And if Jesus also submits to the Father, even though they're equals, then that really changes some things. What we know about God being three, and at the same time one, gets played out for us in community, in sexuality, and family. God is Yahweh (one) and yet also the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (three). If we can see Him clearly, then we'll begin to understand what it looks like to be a human being -or a human community- fashioned after the holy three-and-one Image of God.

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The Father In Sex, Community, and Family Roles

Can you live the human life without being around other people? No. God didn't create just one person when He spoke the world into existence and formed Adam from the dust; He said 'It is not good for man to be alone' and made a woman to be with him (Genesis 2.18). This is sexuality and family. And it means something. One of the great things about being married has been where Kendra and I realize that we're representing God in a way that we never could have alone: I lead my home and (with mixed success so far) care for Kendra, and I come up with the basic vision of where our lives are going as husband and wife; Kendra, even though she's my equal, trusts me and supports that vision (with mixed success). We're representing the Trinity as a married couple: even though the Father and Jesus Christ are equally and totally God, the Father alone knows the plan for how history is going to unfold and Jesus follows His lead on that (Matthew 24.36). In our marriage, Kendra follows my lead, like Jesus, and I do planning like the Father. And if Kendra and I weren't married, cultural roles would fill the void: all people are made equal, but some are national leaders (Kings) or spiritual leaders (Priests), and even though we're equals we are still under their authority - we submit to them just like Jesus submits to the Father. Submission isn't like a UFC 'I'm tapping because you've got me in a kimura armbar and I've lost' sort of thing, it's just choosing to say 'Hey, I'll follow your lead.' So God the Father is the leader in the Trinity, and we represent Him by stepping up into leadership roles in our communities and families (or, by being like Jesus and following the lead of someone else).

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Papa God Don't Have No Body

The other thing is that we represent the Father by just being visible. He is the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). He does not need eyes to see, or ears to hear, or a mouth to speak, or a stomach for digestion, or anatomical structure for the creation of offspring. He is beyond that. There isn't really one specific shape or a body that we can point to and say 'THAT'S what God looks like!' This is why God appears in all sort of different ways in the Old Testament: As a fire in Exodus 3.1-6; as a whirlwind and a pillar of fire in Exodus 13.21-22; or as a shining cloud in Leviticus 16.2. God does not have a physical form because, as Jesus said, "The Father... is spirit" (John 4.24). So when people say, “I think the Image of God means that we look like Him,” there are a lot of problems that come with that. God is infinite and beyond comprehension – and having a body like ours makes Him little more than some kind of ascended human being (which is what the Mormons believe). It takes away from His omnipresence –the teaching that God is everywhere at once- and ties Him to a specific place wherever His body is. Teaching that God has a physical form lowers our view of who He is. We are God's visible image, not because we're filling some kind of gap that God can't fill on His own, but because God can't be reduced to some bodily, visible form.

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What This Means In Everyday Life

Like I have written over the past couple of posts, what we do reflects what kind of God we believe in. If we're visible liars, we show the world that we believe in an invisible God whose character is full of deceit. If we visibly neglect gender roles in our marriages, we show the world that we do not believe the Father leads or cares for the other members of the Trinity. When we go a step beyond that and visibly endorse gay marriages, we show the world that we believe there's no difference between the members of the Trinity at all. But if we accept the roles of parent, husband, king (national leader), and priest (Christian leader), and submit to the people who embody those roles, then we are carrying on in the tradition of God the Father - a tradition that started within the character of Yahweh Himself. If we shirk responsibility and rebel against authority, then we shirk the Image of God and rebel against the Lord who made us. And that's a heavy thing to think about. All this abstract stuff is practical.

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-SeanR.

Also check out
-Imago Dei, the Image of His Nature (we represent God's character)
-Imago Dei, It's All About the Body (our bodies tell us something about God)